Get Involved! - 04.17.13

Below you'll find our short interview with former Thursday drummer Tucker Rule in which we talked about his new project Get Involved! (which features members from Glassjaw, Judge, Death in the Park, and From Autumn To Ashes). The band is currently in the midst of raising money via Kickstarter to record its debut EP with producer Ross Robinson.

You mentioned that you all have been talking about starting a heavy band at some point in time. What were the events that made the stars align for the band to finally happen?

Todd, Brian and I have been trying to start a band for as long as I can remember, but the timing was never right due to schedule conflicts with work, other bands and touring responsibilities. Lars and Derrick were both friends of Todd. Lars played in Judge, of whom I was a huge fan of growing up, which made it a no brainer to want to play music with him. Derrick's band, Generals and Majors, played Todd's last show with Men Women and Children. Todd said he loved Derrick's stage presence so much that he needed to start a band with him.

At first, we were only able to write songs together in small little blips of time as Brian and I were on tour with The Wanted. We had a window of time from December of 2012 till April of 2013 to which Brian and I were off.... Now here we are, ready to RIP.

How did you go about choosing Ross Robinson as your producer?

Ross is an amazing producer and someone I've always wanted to work with. I was a huge fan of At The Drive In, Glassjaw and The Cure to name a few. Todd and Ross worked together on some Glassjaw records, which provided the perfect opportunity to team up. This is a heavy band and I think Ross is going to capture that aspect as well as the vibe, mood and rawness needed to suit the intention.

Why did you decided to go the Kickstarter route?

We get to do it all our way and have our hands on every piece of the band from artwork, to vinyl color to choice of producer. It's a great way to have the listener be involved in the process as well with a really cool incentive package, including us writing a song for you to which you own the rights to, being personally thanked on the record or being an honorary member of the band for a day. There are a bunch more on http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...olved?ref=live.

Two songs you've released thus far are definitely a departure of sorts from the type of music every one made in their previous bands, how do you guys handle the song writing and what goes into that?

We all pretty much get in a room together and collaborate. Like I said, in the grand scheme of things, time has not been on our side until recently. None of us wanted to create another Judge, FATA, GJ or Thursday even though we all are super proud of all those bands. That being said, we are learning to write together pretty quickly and letting things happen organically. The song "Scars Make the Man" was one of the first tracks we wrote together. It was written and recorded in 20 minutes with producer Mark Jordan. I think it's a pretty rad song and sort of gave the band its first taste of the direction of the music and the vibe of the band. The second track "Serenity Now" (the 1st demo track we released) I feel also captures the sound and direction. I'm really looking forward to finishing that song and getting a really energetic recording of it.

What is your ultimate goal with this band?

I think the goal of Get Involved! is to have fun, write heavy music that we would listen to and hang out with some of my best buds.... At the end of the day, we are all always going to have something to do with music whether it's being a DJ, Producer, session player or being in bands... Why not do it with people and songs you believe in.

Big thanks to Tucker for taking some time to answer our questions. Again, if you want to help out Get Involved!, you can contribute to its Kickstarter here.